This is going to be an exciting and very interesting project. You may have seen 30 plus students from BCIT around the Club last week taking measurements, surveys and flying a drone. This new endeavor, spearheaded by Ron Kato, architect, teacher at BCIT and member at the Club, is a two part process spanning four separate degree programs using all 3rd and 4th year students at BCIT. They will all be working together to put together a comprehensive study of the Club, for the Club.
The first part of the program incorporates the students from the Ecological Restoration program, Geomatics program and Architectural design programs. They will be doing a comprehensive site survey generating topographical files and an environmental assessment. They will also be doing a detailed analysis of all the existing facilities at the club ie. the wharf, tennis courts, pool, playground, roof, decks, etc. This will give us all the information we need to put together a reserve fund study that prioritizes maintenance items for the upcoming years to accurately determine necessary reserve fund requirements. This detailed facilities analysis, along with the surveys and environmental assessment (we're on a creek that once had salmon in it and hopefully will again some day) will be the starting point for the second phase of the project.
This next phase brings in the architectural design students and the interior design students and they will be putting together proposals for POTENTIAL future options the club could explore, in terms of adding other recreational facilities or enclosures, replacing existing facilities, possible development opportunities etc. This is the exciting part as the students are being graded on these proposals for their course and they will potentially be planting the seeds of what the club or any of its facilities looks like into the future. The guidelines are simple and they are to ensure the proposals are compatible with the existing site, existing facilities and the Mission statement.
SAVE THE DATE of April 7th. This is when we'll be having the open house where all these students will be unveiling their work. The entire membership is invited to attend and participate. The time of day is not confirmed but we will update you. They will leave behind hard copies of their renderings and we'll put them up in the Club so we can really see what it would actually look like and discuss them. To be 100% clear, we have no obligation to pursue any of the students proposals but I'm sure they will be interesting to explore and it will spark some great debates.
